Green Workflow

For fashion businesses attuned to environmental issues, cloud computing offers a means of conserving energy, reducing the corporate carbon footprint and saving money on energy expenses. FastFit360’s technology has some obvious environmental wins for apparel companies. By reducing the number of samples air shipped around the globe, for example, our customers and their trading partners decrease not only the use of packing materials but also consumption of jet fuel and associated air pollution.

FastFit360’s cloud computing environment also helps fashion businesses reduce the amount of energy needed to run applications on in-house servers. There is a growing body of evidence behind how cloud computing dramatically lowers the amount of energy companies require to operate their IT systems. A 2013 study by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Northwestern University, commissioned by Google, found energy use could be lowered by 87 percent simply by moving email, CRM software and work processing applications into the cloud (Tejada, 2013). In covering the results of the study, IBM’s “Midsize Insider” said this energy reduction, combined with the productivity improvements associated with cloud solutions, add up to major cost savings, helping lean IT departments meet financial goals.

Results of other research studies have presented similar findings. The research firm Verdantix, in a study sponsored by AT&T, estimated that companies could save a cumulative $12.3 billion in energy expenses by using cloud computing (Fehrenbacher, 2011). Much of the savings come from reduction or elimination of the need for in-house servers for storing data and running applications. In fact, Pike Research found cloud computing “could lead to a 38 percent reduction in worldwide data center energy use by 2020” (Fehrenbacher, 2011).

Boiling the savings down to the individual user level, a 2010 study by Microsoft, Accenture and WSP Environment and Energy indicated cloud technology had the potential to cut the per-user carbon footprint by 30 percent for large, “already-efficient” companies and up to 90 percent for smaller, less-efficient businesses (Fehrenbacher, 2011).

FastFit360’s cloud computing solutions can help your business save energy, reduce costs and decrease your carbon footprint. Contact us to learn more.

Sources:

Fehrenbacher, K. (2011, July 21). Cloud Computing Could Lead to Billions in Energy Savings. Gigaom. Retrieved September 10, 2013, from http://gigaom.com/2011/07/21/cloud-computing-could-lead-to-billions-in-energy-savings/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+earth2tech+%28GigaOM%3A+Cleantech%29